Top trainer Mick Price has told stable apprentice Jason Maskiell to find a new master after the Caulfield conditioner lost patience with Maskiell’s drinking habits.

Price told the Herald-Sun he had been in talks with Racing Victoria in an attempt to find the 19-year-old jockey a new stable to ride for and would not “leave him out in the cold”.

However, Price said he would not “tolerate drunks in my stable” and told Maskiell of his fate on Monday morning while the youngster was in Tasmania.

Maskiell returned home to consider his future while serving a 12-meeting suspension from which he will return on Saturday with renewed determination to rise above his alcohol problem.

"I will beat this," Maskiell said. "I have been going through a phase: I'm only 19, and these things happen.

“My binge drinking is over. I believe in myself as a jockey and I intend to have a future.”

Racing Victoria’s head of apprentices, Ron Hall, said support was available from RVL if Maskiell needed it.

Maskiell has ridden 50 winners in town this season to sit second to Luke Nolen in the Melbourne jockeys’ premiership.

racenet news